Janice Hadlow told the Guardian recently that she now has BBC2 where she wants it, citing Gareth Malone's Military Wives, Stargazing Live with Brian Cox and the Great British Bake Off as examples of the channel at the top of its game.

Our panel didn't completely agree, insisting that this has "not been a year to remember" for her channel which has been "squeezed between BBC1 and BBC4". Tell that to delegates at the Edinburgh TV festival, who named it their channel of the year.

But there are big challenges ahead, not least the cuts that are being implemented across the board at the BBC that will see virtually the whole of BBC2's daytime schedule given over to repeats.

BBC2's share of the audience has fallen in the year to date, but it has been boosted by becoming the home of much of the BBC drama which has been abandoned by BBC4 (another consequence of the cuts) with Tom Stoppard's Parade's End and – still to come – Paula Milne's The Politician's Husband sparking interest. All it needs now is its own HD channel.